Building on 60 Years: It Takes a Team. It Takes a Province.

Message from the Chair

BY TOM MAYENKNECHT

For close to 60 years, the BC Sports Hall of Fame has been honouring the past and inspiring the future. In fact, 2026 marks the 60th Anniversary of the BC Sports Hall, a special milestone for all of us dedicated to the Hall and to the promotion of sport history, heritage and culture in British Columbia. As we always are, our team will be proud to continue serving as your go-to storytellers; as the proud historians, curators and record-keepers of the BC sport community.

Without foretelling the future or pretending that we can predict it, we can tell you that 2026 is guaranteed to be a special year provincially, nationally and internationally. It will be yet another magnificent year for the athletes, coaches, builders, pioneers, teams and media who help shape BC as one of the leading hubs for athlete and sport development in Canada.

It is an Olympic year, with the 2026 Milano Cortina Winter Olympics just around the corner in Italy in February. It is also the year of the FIFA World Cup 2026, with Canada co-hosting the world’s largest special event alongside Mexico and the United States. We are excited, of course, that seven matches – and at least two featuring the Canadian men’s national team – will be hosted at BC Place in Vancouver; the same BC Place that we’re proud to call home of the BC Sports Hall of Fame.

Those two mega-events will be the marquee events for 2026, but they’ll be joined by hundreds of other events, achievements and milestones that we’ll work hard to recognize and celebrate, either by special event, banquet, media conference, media release, social media post, email messaging or even this Inspirations e-Newsletter and our website and virtual galleries at www.bcsportshall.com.

The centre of our universe is our Honoured Members. You are the heart and soul of the BC Sports Hall of Fame. We are honoured to have the responsibility of telling your stories, day-in, day-out. It’s not just something that we do through our Selection Committee and year-round selection process that culminates in the Banquet of Champions and our related Induction events, it’s something that we endeavour to do almost every single day. And we simply cannot do that without our dedicated staff. Our boldest ambitions and growth strategies are only realized and made possible on the strength and passion of our lean, mean management team, led by our curator and facility director Jason Beck, our comptroller and manager Barb Chu and our staff, both year-round and seasonal. We appreciate your daily efforts on behalf of the BC Sports Hall of Fame. It’s an appreciation that goes 24/7 but is especially poignant and meaningful as we celebrate the end of one year and the ushering in of a New Year of challenges and opportunities.

Thanks to our Trustees, the community, business and sport leaders who work together to govern the Sports Hall and our BC Sports Hall of Fame and Museum Society. Without your committee work, strategic counsel, leadership and dedication to the cause of inspiring the future, we would not have the same strength to navigate through the ups and downs of the marketplace Thanks also to our Honourary Trustees, who exemplify the best of the best in BC sport, business and life.

We can’t do it without the BC Sports Hall of Fame Foundation and its Board of Directors. Thanks to each and every one of you for your stewardship of our legacy fund, one which is approaching the $3M threshold and which – thanks to our combined efforts – is designed to help ensure the long-term sustainability of the BC Sports Hall of Fame. Our planned giving campaign in 2026 will help build the legacy fund in the years to come thanks to those who believe in the power of sport and the inspiration of sport history, heritage and culture.

Thanks to our lifeblood; the donors who believe in the inspirational power of sport history and whose financial contributions help us conceive, build and run our community programs such as the Hero in you. We cannot be the best BC Sports Hall of Fame that we can be without our donors, the vast majority of whom make annual donations that help us build our capacity and impact. This year, we are all inspired by Ron and Alma Jones, who have bestowed upon the BC Sports Hall of Fame an endowment of $1 million, the largest single gift in the 59-year history of the Sports Hall.

Thanks also to our Council of Chairs, the group of former Chairs of the BC Sports Hall of Fame who care so much about the Hall that they continue to support our best efforts to this day. We don’t take your wisdom and counsel for granted – especially in connection with the Elevation 2026 Special 60th Anniversary fundraising campaign planned for the calendar year 2026.

Yet at this time of year and throughout the year, we’re reminded that we can’t do what we do on behalf of our Honoured Members without you, the BC sport sector and our advocates throughout the province. The BC Sports Hall of Fame is only as strong as our network of supporters and the resultant footprint that we have on the British Columbia sporting landscape.

For example, we can’t do it without our Nominators, those who are moved to submit nominations for consideration as the next Class of Honoured Members in any given year. The stronger and greater the number — and the more inclusive are our nominations – the more inspirational each class will be.

Thanks to the members of our Selection Committee. This dynamic cross-section of Honoured Members, media and community leaders/Trustees invests considerable time in ensuring that the best of the best are presented as our new class, each and every year.

We couldn’t do it without the emerging BC Sports Hall Network, the group of more than 40 local, regional and sport-specific Halls of Fame doing great work in all corners of the province of British Columbia. With your ongoing support and strength of leadership in your own communities, you’ll help us tell stories from the grassroots to the global stage. And with more strength and capacity locally, we’ll be stronger provincially.

Thanks to those professionals in our media community. Whether you connect with sport history, heritage and culture in print/digital, radio, television or social, you make a difference on the strength of your own take on the athletes, coaches, builders, pioneers and teams who have made the BC sport community what it is, one of the strongest in North America. Every story you tell will inspire another group of young British Columbians in the years to come.

Thanks to our community and business partners, multi-platform support from leading brands and corporations and small to midsize businesses will help define a new future for the BC Sports Hall of Fame, one that is being mapped out in the renewal of our Inspirations 2030 strategic plan in the coming months.

We couldn’t do what we do without the sport sector that we serve as your go-to storytellers throughout the year. That includes the Government of British Columbia, the Ministry of Tourism, Arts, Culture & Sport and viaSport, along with Canadian Heritage and the Government of Canada.

It also includes all multi-sport organizations, including Sport BC, KidSport, BC Women & Sport, ISPARC, the BC Games Society, the Canadian Sport Institute Pacific, SportMedBC and BC School Sports. Moreover, we couldn’t do what we do without the Provincial Sport Organizations (PSOs) and Local Sports Organizations (LSOs) who govern and manage their respective sports year-round – to those who have sport-specific Halls, congratulations and thank you.

We certainly couldn’t do it without our other key partners and teammates in the promotion of sport history, heritage and culture, including our friends at BC Place and BC Pavilion Corp (PavCo).

With thanks for your ongoing support, best of the season to you and yours, on behalf of all of us at the BC Sports Hall of Fame.

Tom Mayenknecht, Chair
BC Sports Hall of Fame

Tom Mayenknecht is the Chair of the BC Sports Hall of Fame. A principal at Emblematica Brand Builders in Vancouver and a nationally recognized sport business commentator and founder and host of The Sport Market on Sportsnet 650 and the Sportsnet Radio Network, he is a strong advocate for KidSport, Right To Play and other children’s charities, including the Sports Hall’s own Hero in You programs. He is also a member of the Ringette Canada Hall of Fame as a builder.